Mt. Hope’s LadyBots advance to Super-Regional tourney

The LadyBots, from left: Jenna Longo, Amanda Crawley, and Annelise Boylan celebrate having just hung their robot. Their alliance raised the flag, gaining the maximum points in the last 30 seconds of the match.

All four teams of the Mt. Hope High School robotics club exceeded expectations in the First Tech Challenge last weekend.

Thirty-two teams from high schools throughout Rhode Island competed in the event, which was held at the New England Tech Automotive Campus in Warwick Feb. 8.

The First Tech Challenge is a robotics competition for high school students based on a sports model. Teams are responsible for designing, building and programming their robots to compete as alliances against other teams.Teams advance from local qualifying tournaments to state championship tournaments, before advancing to the World Championship Tournament, held each year in St. Louis, Mo.

The LadyBots, a team of four girls — Daisy Alves, Jenna Longo, Amanda Crawley, and Annelise Boylan, was awarded second for the Inspire Award. The award is given to a team that “truly embodied the challenge of the program…an inspiration to other teams, acting with Gracious Professionalism, both on and off the playing field.”

From left, Daisy Alves, Amanda Crawley and Annelise Boylan have their robot transfer blocks it had picked up in a conveyor belt-fashion, to place them in the farthest left, pendulum goal. This means that the LadyBots got three points for each block scored. By placing these blocks in the goal, the team is also balancing the pendulum.

Their award will advance them to one of four Super-Regional Championship Tournaments in York, Penn., in April, before advancing to the World Championship.

The LadyBots will have to fund-raise in order to get to the Pennsylvania event, said coach Ryan Garrity.

Mt. Hope’s Underdogs won the Motivate Award, which celebrates the team that exemplifies the essence of the competition through team building, team spirit and enthusiasm.

The TaterBots and the Looney Tunes Robotics teams also did well, said Mr. Garrity. Those teams, along with the Underdogs, will have one more chance to qualify for the Super-Regional Championship, as they attend another state championship within the next few weeks.